It wasn’t a must win game for the Austin Bruins, but it was one they really wanted after scoring just two goals in two losses to the Alexandria Blizzard last weekend.

The Bruins shook off their scoring woes against Alexandria goalie Jacob Meyers in a 3-1 win in Riverside Arena Thursday.

Austin’s John Kirby learned it’s better to go around Meyers than through him when he gathered a loose puck that ricocheted from behind the net to him. Kirby snuck behind Myers to score on a powerplay that made it a 2-1 Austin lead with 11:26 left in the game.

“The goalie didn’t even know I was there, he was completely on the other side,” said Kirby, a graduate of Austin High School. “I’ll take them any way I can.”

Kirby, who is playing forward this season, now leads the Bruins with seven goals.

“I’m playing with some great goal scorers and they help me out a lot,” Kirby said. “I’m getting a lot of shots on goal this year.”

The Bruins (9-6-1 overall) put the game away when Charlie Adams scored on an empty netter with 42 seconds left. Austin had led 1-0 after two periods, but the Blizzard (8-6-1 overall) tied the game up when Justin Moody blasted a shot off the back shoulder of Tyler Bruggeman and the puck landed in the net.

From that point on, Austin played harder, but head coach Chris Tok was wishing that intensity would’ve come earlier.

“There’s no by laws in the rules that say we’ve got to wait for them to do something (before we play hard),” Tok said. “It seemed like as soon as they scored, there was a light switch and it wasn’t going to happen again. In a way, that’s good. But we don’t want to have to respond all the time; we’ve got to build on leads.”

Bruggeman finished with 34 saves as he kept the Blizzard at bay.

“Early in the game they had a couple of chances to score and he shut them down with no rebounds and gave our guys a chance to win,” Tok said.

Austin scored its first goal when Christian Folin blasted a slap shot through during a 5-on-3 powerplay in the first period.

The Bruins, who play at Aberdeen Friday at 7:15 p.m., knew Thursday’s game was big after they went through a brutal week of tough practices.

“It wouldn’t have been the end of the season (if we lost), but we really put our guys through the rigors this week in practice,” Tok said. “The energy was there tonight. They looked like ghosts lasts Saturday and something was missing.”

SCORING SUMMARY

Alexandria 0 0 1 — 1

Austin 1 0 2 — 3

First period

(A) Christian Folin (powerplay) (Charlie Adams) 9:42

Second period

No scoring

Third period

(AL) Justin Moody 4:42

(A) John Kirby (powerplay) (Andy Faust) 8:34

(A) Charlie Adams (Folin, Kirby) (empty net) 19:18

Powerplays: Austin — 2-for-5; Alexandria — 0-for-3

Shots: Austin — 23; Alexandria — 35